Author's note: This chapter's going to be a bit of a long one, and a little... ok, a lot... angsty. Enjoy!
We gotta cold one today, folks. Cold, cold, cold. Gotta couple weather warnin's this mornin', haven't had snow this bad since that January in '09, remember that Steve? Sure do, Andy. Like we said, gonna be bad today and tonight, so if you gotta go out, stay safe, get your snow chains on if you're in a rural area, and don't forget your hat- you lose most of your heat through your head, Andy…
I sat shivering in the car, the heating system fighting against the cold air. Snow was falling in flurries, settling on the windscreen, the whiteness blinding, the radio a soothing buzz against the silence.
"How long?" I asked. The man next to me glanced at his watch.
"Seven minutes."
"Are you sure?" I could see my breath as I spoke, the car providing barely any warmth against the snow outside.
"Castiel entrusted me to deliver you, I must-"
I held my hands up. "Phanuel. I know… I know. Can you blame for me being anxious about this?"
The angel responded with a silent nod, his eyes dipping to look at his watch again.
We were less than ten minutes away from either the beginning or the end. I sat with Phanuel, waiting until it was time. The plan had to work, it had to. We'd talked it through so many times, stayed awake for days, planning every detail, every intricacy. The angels were going down today, or we'd die trying.
I didn't miss the way Dean embraced me before I left last night, the lingering hand on the small of my back; the other wrapped in my hair.
"We'll see you tomorrow, ok? Stay safe, angel."
I didn't miss the strain on Sam's face, the way he whispered in my ear as he hugged me goodbye, small words of encouragement for what could be the end of us all. We got this, he'd said, his jaw clenched, his body tense.
Cas left with just a nod; lips tight but eyes saying all we needed to hear.
This was it. We fight or we die, but we had the best weapon out there: something to fight for.
Dean and Sam were about a quarter mile away, parked up in my Jeep, the trunk loaded to the nines with our angel killing arsenal. They'd wait for the signal from Cas and bring it round; Jody and the other Sioux Falls hunters were a half mile away, they'd follow up just after.
I didn't know who was listening, if anyone, but I sent a silent prayer that this went to plan, that we catch them by surprise, that we keep the upper hand. Cas and Phanuel didn't think they had any idea, they thought the plan would work, but I couldn't shake off the gnawing doubt in my stomach.
"It's time." The words I'd been waiting to hear ended up hitting me like a bus.
I tried to keep my voice steady. "Let's kick some ass." The cold slammed into me as I got out of the car, cutting at my cheeks and taking my breath away. Gravel crunched under my boots as I followed Phanuel blindly through the snow, holding my breath to try and cease the shaking that had taken over my body.
"Did the gateway between realms have to be in Minnesota?" I turned to my companion, unaffected by the biting cold and heavy snow.
"This gateway was not intentional. We had no control over where it opened."
From what I could see, woodland started to thicken around us, boughs heavy with snow forming archways above us. I wondered how we'd fight in this storm, how we expected 'Holy Molotov's' to work in this snow. We walked for what felt like hours in the cold, but Phanuel eventually stopped and the brush thinned out. I turned my head toward the cold but felt nothing. We'd reached a clearing, about the size of a football field, completely untouched by the snow. In the middle, the air seemed to flicker and warp, dancing in the light.
"The sn-"
"There is too much power here. It spills out. Snow would have little chance against such energy. Are you ready?"
I nodded.
Dean took a sip from plastic cup, filled with coffee from the Thermos that Maya had insisted they bring. The snow was worrying him, the cold was biting, he could barely see. The radio buzzed against the silence.
"I don't like the looks of this, Sammy," he turned to his brother, his head covered by a trapper cap and a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck.
"Cas wouldn't have given us the go ahead if he was worried about a snow storm, right? It's gonna be fine, it has to be."
"She's being offered up a bait, maybe as we speak. Nothing about this is right. We shoulda called it off."
"Today we're soldiers, Dean, all of us. We get out there, we fight, we finish the job." Sam took a sip from his own cup.
"Do you believe that, Sammy?" Dean arched a brow.
"I… have to."
The radio turned to static, loud and jarring in the silent car. The words they'd been waiting to hear came: "It's time."
The lack of snow gave Sam and Dean a tactical disadvantage, but if they kept to the outskirts, where the snow was still falling thickly, they might be able to retain the upper hand. I followed Phanuel to the centre, where the air was rippling, and we waited. I couldn't stop my eyes from flickering to the fringes of the clearing, my ears straining for a sign. If Sam and Dean weren't here in time, the plan would fall apart. The ruse would become a reality.
"Brother." A voice came from behind us, professionally courteous yet cold. I spun around. She was wearing a dark suit, hair pinned up in a bun, pale skin pulled tight over sharp cheek bones and a pointed nose. A plain looking man stood next to her, his eyes deep set and scowling in my direction.
"Dina... Daniel. It's good to see you."
Dina held up a dismissive hand. "You have bought the half-breed. Theywill be pleased. There may be a reward in it for you, brother."
Phanuel's mouth pulled into a whisper of a smile. "I seek no reward. This is for the safety of our brothers and sisters, that is enough for me."
"How honourable." The male angel spoke, his voice icy.
I began to tense, my eyes scouring the edges of the clearing for any sign of the brothers or Cas. Nothing.
"What... what will happen to me?" I feigned fear.
"You will be quite safe. I've heard heaven's cells are quite comfortable." Dina smiled a thin smile.
"Cells? I'll be a prisoner?"
"Of course, you didn't think that we'd-" Dina didn't get to finish the sentence. Blinding light emanated from her body, her mouth wide open in pain. A yell barely had time to escape her lips before she crumbled the floor, the grass beneath her blackened in the shape of wings.
"What the?-" Daniel was next, he wheeled around to face his attacker, but I slipped my angel blade from the back of my jeans and it pushed through his ribcage with a sickening pop. Light filled my vision once more and the ground burned again.
Dean was in front of me, his eyes flashing, his chest heaving. My heart swelled.
"How long we got?"
"A couple of minutes, if that."
"Sam's on his way with the truck, Jody's five minutes out," he tossed Phanuel and I a bag each, filled with the makeshift Molotovs and a cache of lighters. "We can hold 'em off until they get there." He turned to me. "Angel. You okay?"
"Peachy keen, Jellybean." I managed to breathe.
"Position yourselves around the gateway. Phanuel, Maya, you take the front, I'll take behind with Sam when he gets here. We good to go?"
I nodded and felt Phanuel do the same.
"Give 'em hell."
I put the duffle at my feet and pulled out a bottle and a lighter, my finger poised on the flint. We had to time it right, we didn't have an infinite supply of these things.
I barely had a chance to catch my breath; the ground beneath me began to vibrate, the gateway rippling more violently, glowing more brightly. Three of them appeared, then seven, then ten. I looked to Dean.
"Mine!" he shouted to me above the roar that had started to fill the air around us. The bottle smashed behind them and the dry grass went up like a dream, the air ringing with their yells of pain and smell of burning flesh filling my nostrils. We had no time to time to even think from then on. They began arriving in earnest, poised like Gladiators in an arena, the strength of millennia of wars behind them.
Two lunged at me, their angel blades glinting, their face set in smiles of anticipation. I took out my own blade and darted left, sending them skidding into Phanuel who plunged his knife into the chest of one. Time to put what I'd learned in training into practice. I held my hand out in front of me, revelling in the heat I felt travel up my palm. I dodged out of the second angel's way as he leapt toward me. He spun around quickly and I let him lunge, my hand gripping his wrist just as he reached my chest; he yelled out, the light filling my vision against. I let him fall to the floor.
I heard Dean yell something behind me, and I whirled round to see six or seven more heading in our direction. I fumbled for the Molotov I'd dropped on the floor, pulled the lighter from my pocket and lit it up, watching as the flames consumed them all.
In my peripheral I could see my Jeep pulling up, Sam leaping it out of it and heading into battle. Jody and five or six of her hunter friends followed suit from one of their trucks. We'd be outnumbered soon, I thought, but we had weapons of mass angel destruction.
The vibrations in the ground grew stronger and the light from the gateway became blinding. I closed my eyes against it, recoiling against the heat it seemed to be giving off. When I opened my eyes all hell broke loose.
Dean couldn't look at Maya any longer, the gateway was giving off the light of the sun. It was hot, so hot, and he closed his eyes against the energy it was giving off. After a couple of seconds, he felt the light diminish and opened his eyes to see exactly the all-out war he was planning for.
They'd sent a whole battalion, a hundred or so, maybe more. He chanced a glance at Sam and Jody, poised to attack, their personal arsenals in the duffle bags at their feet.
"Light em up!" He yelled, and fumbled with his own bag. He lit one bottle after another, tossing them as hard as he could toward the masses of those winged bastards, watching them become engulfed in the flames, flailing around, yelling out. They weren't so big after all. The clearing was suddenly a fire pit, they lit and threw and they kept on coming, kept on falling.
Where was Cas? He could see Phanuel, smiting every angel that came within 10 feet of he and Maya, but Cas still hadn't made an appearance.
"I'm out!" He yeard Maya yell from in front of him. Shit. He felt his heart drop to his stomach.
"Me too!" Jody called, whirling around to plunge her angel blade into an angel who'd split from the pack.
"I got two" Sam responded.
Shit. God damn it. He should have known this would happen, it was bound to. They had no choice, they had to keep fighting. They were sending less and less with each wave. There were ten of them, if they kept fighting like this they could do it.
He bobbed and weaved, feigning and sidestepping in the way he'd perfected through all these years. He closed in, noticing everybody else doing the same. He saw Sam grappling with one of them on the floor, struggling against the weight of him, eventually rolling him on his side and pushing his blade into his side. Jody had two on her hands, their blades clashing, but she was holding her own like a pro. He didn't dare look at Maya, he couldn't. The angels kept dropping though, he could see that much. He'd told Maya to use her powers, to do whatever she had to to win. He could finally see Cas, his hand outstretched, sending two of them flying into the single patch of flames that hadn't already burnt out.
"On your left!" He heard someone shout, their voice almost lost in the thunder-like roaring of the gateway and the shouts and grunts of their enemies. He lunged forward, trying to get some distance between him and the angel to make up for his delayed reaction. He felt himself stumble over something, the body of one he'd already killed, and his face met the floor with a painful thud. He rolled over as quickly as he could but he couldn't see the angel. He fought to push himself up over the mass of bodies on the floor, hopefully, nobody he knew, his feet failing to find sturdy ground. He groped around for his angel blade, feeling nothing but the charred grass beneath him. He registered something in his peripheral vision but before he had time to respond he felt the coolness of metal deep in his chest and the warmth of his blood.
I felt time stand still. For a moment, the fighting stopped, my heart stopped beating, my lungs weren't getting any air. For one moment, he'd been distracted, his eyes somewhere else. That was all it took, his head start lost. Nausea burned in my stomach and rose up my throat. The world kept moving.
"Dean!" I didn't feel my feet take me across to the battlefield to where he lay, I ignored every sound, every thought. I just ran. I grabbed the son of a bitch angel by his neck, the way I'd done with the guy fighting with Dean in that dive, letting that heat travel down my arm and to spread to his body. I fell to my knees by his side, watching the blood pool through that plaid shirt I loved so much. I could vaguely see Sam sprinting toward us, but the fight was still going on. I couldn't switch my brain into doctor mode because the patient in front of me wasn't a patient, it was Dean, my Dean.
His eyes were open, but barely, and his breathing was slow. "Maya," he rasped.
I cupped his cheek. "Hey, hey, it's okay. Stay with me, OK, stay with me? How about it, huh? We've made quite a name for ourselves, huh? Sending a whole army? Stay with me, Dean, stay with me." I forced my mind to focus, to clear. I thought about how easily I'd killed those angels, just a touch. Cas said I might be able to heal? Could I? I had to try. I placed my hand on his chest, just above where the blade went in. I thought about the warm feeling, I thought about how much I wanted Dean to be better, I thought about how I needed him to get better.
"Come on, come on, please." The world stood still again, I could only hear my heart and my ragged breaths.
"Maya-"
"No, Dean, no. No! This is going to work, it's going to work, stay with okay? You stay... you stay with me. Please? Pleaseyouhaveto, please." I could feel the warmth emanating from palm, my fingers, light leaving my body.
"Maya, I-"
Then my world collapsed around me, on top of me, beneath me, crushing me, tearing my heart from my body. The world kept spinning - no, there was no world anymore. I looked down at him, those green eyes hidden, so beautiful, so peaceful. I thought that I'd never see them again. All I could do was scream. I screamed and screamed until my lungs gave out and the ground around me started shaking, humming, burning. I yelled until my body was on fire and the world around me was on fire and the ground was giving way beneath my legs. Hot tears ran down my face but I didn't feel them, my eyes were closed against that picture- I couldn't look at it, not now. I could hear Sam, Jody, everybody fighting, still fighting. They had to. Did they know? Did they see? I let the sobs rack my body, tears burning beneath my eyelids, and let anger fill my heart and my soul and my blood. The ground kept vibrating, the air humming, it was hot again, burning hot. The anger kept boiling, burning my insides, melting the pain. Then there was light, blinding white light; a noise like thunder, deafening in my ear and dropping me to my knees. Then there was silence.
I opened my eyes again. It was still, calm. Sam was beside me now, hunched over Dean, silent. I stood up, looking around like it was my first day on earth. The ground was scorched, black. There were no angels anymore, just bodies. Wings burnt on the ground, the smell of fire. Jody was by Sam, her face tear stained. Cas stook next to her, facing the battleground.
"What... what happened?" I breathed.
Cas turned to me. "You did it," he said simply.
I stumbled back to Sam and fell to my knees again, wrapping my arms around him, letting silent tears fall.
I don't know how long we stayed there, how much time had passed, but the ache in my chest was almost unbearable. I reached my hand to touch Dean's face one more time, to feel the softness of his cheek, the roughness of his stubble.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
The wind blew around me, rustling the trees. I took a deep breath, relishing in the air.
Dean opened his eyes.